


Why Phil Went to Hospital

by NelindeA



Series: Fragments [3]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Dan freaking out, Fluff and stuff, Gen, Phil headache, Probably hospital stuff, Though I'm trying to avoid that bit as much as possible, phil fainting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-20 04:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17615081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NelindeA/pseuds/NelindeA
Summary: Phil faints and has to go to hospital. You've seen the video. This is just a fleshed out version of what he didn't tell us.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I'm not the only one who went into FULL FREAKOUT MODE when Phil announced that he fainted, right? Seriously, what happens when one of them has an actually traumatic hospital experience? What will we even do?
> 
> I know this is kind of old news now. This story has been a long time coming though, as I wrote it in my head like the day after Phil's hospital video came out, but this is the first time since then I've actually had time to type it out.
> 
> Also, this has nothing to do with my "We Are the Broken" story. All the stories in this "Fragments" series are independent of each other.

A feeling of dread started to rise up in Phil’s chest that went along with the feeling of a throbbing pain in the back of his head. He could have sworn he just had a headache a couple of days ago. Was he really due another one, already?

He tried to ignore it and pretend that he could get through the rest of the day anyway, but as afternoon turned into evening and the pain had only increased, he finally slid off his bed and wandered into the lounge where Dan was.

“Hey,” he said. 

“Hey,” Dan replied, staring at his laptop.

“I know we said we’d do a liveshow today, but could we maybe…” Phil paused. “Not?”

Dan glanced up. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Why, what’s wrong? You thought you were getting the flu; do you have the flu?” 

“Headache,” was all Phil could manage, and Dan’s eyes followed him as he let himself drop onto the sofa. Phil turned to meet Dan’s worried expression.

“Again?” Dan asked. “Didn’t you just have one?”

“Yep, that’s what I thought too,” Phil said, closing his eyes.

“Did you take…”

“Yeah, I took some ibuprofen, Dan, and it’s still here,” Phil sighed, opening his eyes again. “I’m fine, though. I’m probably just recovering from Spooky Week.”

Dan’s concerned eyes continued to bore into him, so Phil mustered a smile. “But don’t worry, I’ve got a whole month to recover in time for Gamingmas.”

“Mmhm,” Dan said, pointing towards the door. “Glasses. Go. Now.”

Phil softly giggled and went to go take his contacts out, even though he was pretty sure they weren’t contributing. And they weren’t, but it made it easier when he was ready to go to bed, which he did as early as he thought his body would let him because the clamping on his cranium was showing absolutely no signs of departing. 

In fact, it was only getting worse. 

Trying to sleep that night was one of the most hellish experiences Phil felt that he’d experienced in a while. Because he was caught in some state of in-between, not being conscious enough to wake up, but not being asleep enough to be relieved of the throbbing, the pounding, the clamping. 

He had to do something. He had to make it stop, before he quite resorted to ripping his own skull out. He made an effort to wake completely up, which was actually frighteningly difficult. But he managed, at least managed enough to drag himself out of bed, shove his glasses on his face, and make his way towards the bathroom. 

For a moment he could only stand there, staring, swaying, and feeling the dizziest and most-lightheaded he would have thought a person could feel. It was like he was still asleep, not even in his body, and seeing only a cloudy, blurry mess in front of him. 

And then he had a very lovely view of the bathroom ceiling.

It took him several moments of staring at it to realize that was what he was looking at. He blinked a couple of times in confusion, wondering why he’d suddenly decided to stare at the ceiling, before realizing that he was lying on the floor.

Had he fainted? That was such a terrifying thought that he instantly began to scramble to his feet, which was probably the worst thing he could have done in that moment, because suddenly there he was, staring at the ceiling again, with no idea how he got there. 

It was like Groundhog Day but worse, because his restart position was staring at the bathroom ceiling, which had kind of a suspicious crack in it and also looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in several years. The spiderweb in the corner looked pretty new, anyway.

But now Phil was too scared to get up. If he’d blacked out, twice in a row, then what was to say he wouldn’t do it again? His knee was now also aching, meaning he’d banged it somewhere along the way. He could hit his head next time. Would he be stuck here forever? Would he die here? Here, in the least aesthetic room in the house? No, no, no, it couldn’t end like this! He briefly had a thought too of if he would come back to haunt the bathroom, but that thought was replaced with more important things. How much longer did he have? One of his hands was trapped under him; what happened when it fell asleep and he needed to move it? Would the paramedics have to carry his body out on a stretcher? If Dan came in in the morning would he think to look down so as to not trip over—

Dan. In that moment Phil wanted to cry, both at his own stupidity and also at the thought that not all was lost, after all. Dan would know what to do. 

But it would hurt to yell. And he had no idea how long he’d have to do it for. Dan could sleep through quite a lot. 

But Phil was so terrified by this point that it would be worth it, just to have Dan take care of all of this for him. So he grit his teeth and shouted Dan’s name as loud as he could.  
Nothing. Well, Phil had expected no less. So he did it again, and then once more. He ended up calling for Dan five times, and was preparing for a sixth when he heard an irritated, half-asleep “What?” float over from the other side of the house. 

Relief flowed Phil’s body. “I fell over…” he cried, though with a little less volume this time, because he felt entirely safe now knowing that the message had been delivered.

“You what?”

Phil closed his eyes, not being able to muster the energy to reply. Oddly enough the pain in his head was kind of going away now, and sleep felt like a pretty nice idea all of a sudden. But Dan seemed to suddenly figure out what Phil had said, and although Phil couldn’t quite discern what Dan was shouting, he could guess it well enough. 

Dan stormed into the bathroom and just stared in horror at Phil lying on the floor. “Oh my…Phil are you okay? What on earth did you do? What happened?”

Phil opened his eyes, and then squinted. “Why are you holding a pillow?” he croaked. 

Dan looked down at his pillow in surprise, and then tossed it out of the room. “Can you sit up?” he asked. 

“Yeah.” Phil didn’t know why he hadn’t thought to do that before, now that his headache was considerably less severe. 

“What happened to you?” Dan repeated. 

“I dunno, I was…I mean I came up to get some more ibuprofen, and then I kinda just woke up on the floor…”

“You fainted?” The panic was evident in Dan’s voice, and only kept rising. “Like, you fully blacked out? Phil, you could have…what if you’d hit your head?” 

“Well, I didn’t.”

“But why did you faint? Never mind…it doesn’t matter, because I’m gonna call an ambulance now.”

“What?” Phil asked. “But I’m fine, look, I didn’t hit my head.”

“But you…” Dan started pacing. “This is bad, yeah? I mean, I know you’re pretty clumsy and you fall over all the time, but I don’t really think we can attribute it to that…”

“No, especially since it happened again when I tried to get up.”

“You fainted twice? Phil, these are the kinds of details that you need to state at the beginning! So you fainted twice, that doesn’t just happen from a normal headache, does it? What if you’ve got a tumor, or are having a stroke, or what if—”

“I want toast,” Phil said suddenly. 

Dan stopped for breath and just stared at Phil. “Toast?”

“Yep,” Phil nodded confidently. “Look, my head’s kinda feeling better, and I’m not so dizzy anymore. Maybe I’m just hungry.”

“Hungry?” Dan asked, as if he was only capable of repeating what Phil said. 

Phil looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Make me toast please? I don’t think I could stand up long enough to do it.”

“Phil…ambulance…”

“Dan, who wants to go to A&E at five in the morning? I’m serious, I’m feeling sort of better now, and I’ll go to the doctor later if I still have the headache, okay?” 

Dan bit his lip anxiously, but after reflecting for a moment, he nodded his consent. Phil slowly stood up, Dan standing poised ready to catch Phil if he fell. He followed Phil to the kitchen, and then proceeded to actually make some toast as Phil watched him. Dan then in turn proceeded to watch Phil eat it, and then followed him back to his bedroom. 

Phil stopped at the door and grinned at him. “All right, thanks Mother Hen, you’re good now.”

“Nope, not until I see you get into bed.”

“Wow, Dan, way to make it weird.”

But Dan wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “It’s not weird if you blacked out twice in a row.”

“Fine.” Phil walked over to his bed and got in it. “There. Happy?”

“No.” But Dan turned and started walking away. “And I’m leaving your door open.”

“Good night Dan!” Phil called cheerfully. 

He heard Dan’s footsteps stop and then return to the doorway. He sighed as he poked his head back in. “Good night, Phil. Please don’t get up again.”


	2. II

To neither one’s surprise, Phil’s headache was still present and active when he woke up about six hours later. It had settled down enough so that he was able to get up and have breakfast, but Dan’s eyes still watched his every move until Phil agreed to go and have it checked out. 

When Phil got dressed and walked to the door, he found Dan there with shoes and coat on as well. “Dan, I’m fine, I can go by myself,” Phil informed him. 

Dan snorted. “As if.”

He didn’t say anything else, and Phil didn’t protest. At least not until they’d arrived and Phil had been admitted. Then he did tell Dan to go home, and he’d text him updates, because he had no idea how long he’d have to be here. 

Dan consented, with very little persuasion, and it was only then that Phil noticed how red his eyes were. He vaguely wondered what the reason for that was, but the only one he had time to settle for was that Dan had probably gone to bed late again, and then had been woken up at 5 in the morning. 

Phil just hoped he’d gone back to bed afterwards was all. 

The next several hours were kind of a blur for Phil, but not a very interesting or quick blur. He had to answer lots of questions, often the same types of questions to several different people, and go through all kinds of procedures. Honestly, the CT scan was the most exciting part of the day, even though he was terrified that something in his brain apparently warranted that extreme of a procedure. 

He did faithfully text Dan constantly, letting him know what he was doing now or what information they were giving him, or lack thereof. Dan only replied every time with a “K,” but Phil knew that he was glad of the updates. 

After Phil had been told what his CT scan results were, Phil slowly dragged his phone out of his pocket to give Dan this latest update. But Dan had texted him first, with something more than just one letter of confirmation.

“Any idea yet when you’ll be done?”

He sighed and very slowly typed out his reply message. “Actually they want me to stay overnight. Like, in a bedroom and stuff.”

Phil held his phone in his hand for one minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. Dan had immediately replied to all his previous ones, so Phil knew there was no way he hadn’t seen it. One more minute passed before the reply came, but all it said was, “Why?” 

Phil’s stomach tightened for Dan. There was no way that had been his first text draft. He pictured Dan writing out a thousand questions and rants, before deleting them all and replacing them with the only really crucial word.

“Because they still don’t know why I fainted and they want to do an MRI scan.”

Another couple of minutes of radio silence before an “Oh.”

And then immediately after, “K, I’m coming up then. Anything you want me to bring you?”

An inexplicable warmth began to flow over Phil’s chest as he smiled. Dan didn’t need to do that. It wasn’t like Phil was dying, or even going into surgery, and he hadn’t even told Dan that it might be for more than one night. And of course all Phil would have had to do was ask Dan to come see him for Dan to immediately drop everything and do it.   
But the fact that he didn’t have to ask, that was making him feel very grateful and warm in this moment. 

Phil was definitely expecting Dan to come up and start fussing all over him, shooting him those concerned looks every time Phil turned his head, like he had been doing the night before. 

So he was surprised when Dan came up with a smile and an eye roll, like they were meeting for coffee or something and Phil had gotten caught in the rain with no umbrella.   
“I brought your phone charger,” Dan said, reaching into a pocket of the backpack. “Which is something you forgot to ask me for, so, you’re welcome.”

Phil laughed, and took the backpack Dan was holding out to him. “Ooh, you brought snacks!” 

“Yeah, you think I’m gonna let you eat whatever excuses for food they serve here?”

Phil began rooting through it. “Excuse me, where’s the chocolate?”

“We don’t have any.”

“Yeah I know, I meant where’s the chocolate you bought me? You know, for being sick in the hospital?” 

Dan rolled his eyes. “Oh, you’re barely here, Phil, and they’re letting you go tomorrow, aren’t they?” 

Phil sighed. “I don’t know. They said it might be up for three days.”

Dan hesitated. “Okay, whose head do I need to punch in for making that decision?"

“They’re just doing their job, Dan.”

“Yeah.” Dan looked out the window for a minute. Phil watched him, searching for any signs of worry. Dan could be known to panic quite hard, but maybe he’d gotten all that out of the way last night. Or early this morning, rather. 

“I saw you tweeted saying where you are,” Dan said, suddenly turning back to Phil.

“I saw you tweeted a picture of me strapped up to a bunch of wires. Weren’t you walking out though when that was happening?”

“Yeah, I took it on my way out this morning. Sorry, mate, I would have told you but you were freaking out because of the whole needles thing.”

“I was not either.”

“Well, anyway,” Dan grinned. “You kinda just posted that bombshell and left it, so I tweeted the picture just to show that you were alive and stuff.”

“Hey, I said I was fine in the tweet!”

“Yeah, anybody would, but the people like visual evidence, Phil. That’s why we are YouTubers and not bloggers.” He glanced over at the hospital bed. “Hold on, aren’t you supposed to be in that?” 

“I’m not an invalid, Dan.”

“I don’t blame you actually, that thing looks pretty uncomfortable.” Dan sat on the edge of the bed and swung his legs up. “Yep. Wow. Have fun sleeping tonight.”

Phil narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re taking this suspiciously well,” he said. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know, you’re over here acting like everything is normal and I don’t have to spend a couple of days in a hospital bed because they don’t know why I fainted twice in a row.”  
“Maybe I just have a lot of faith in the capabilities of doctors.”

“No, seriously though, you’re acting extremely calm.” Phil nodded. “I’m proud of you. If this situation was reversed you can bet I’d be having a full on panic attack right now.”  
“I’m just super zen, Phil, you should know this about me. Always calm, never screaming or panicking…”

“Okay, actually shut up.” Phil laughed and threw a hoodie at him. “But you’re right about the visual evidence thing, I should probably do an Insta story or something. With my actual voice.”

“You do that,” Dan said. “I’ll just lay here like a French girl.”

Phil pulled out his phone. “So I’m meant to be the one in hospital, and Dan is just lounging on my bed,” he said, laughing at the sudden realization of how funny it looked.  
Dan gave a small smile and thumbs up. “Just laying comfortably,” he said. “Supportive friend.”

“Paint me like one of your French…doctors,” Phil giggled.

“Patients,” Dan corrected. 

“Okay, that’s enough, right?” Phil asked, lowering the phone. 

“I mean yeah, but they’re gonna be clamoring for more.”

“Yeah. But it’s okay, now they’ve heard that I’m not drugged up and they’ve seen that you’re with me and they know I’m not confined to a bed, apparently. Now they can just wait. I’m already planning a video for this experience.”

Dan nodded, and for a brief second Phil caught a glimmer of worry in his eyes before he covered it up again with a smile. But it rattled Phil. Was Dan putting on a face? He could do that very well, if he chose. Dan hadn’t been okay on every single tour date, or during every single meetup, but you would have never been able to pick out which of those times he was feeling miserable or deflated. He was very, very good at hiding how he was really feeling. Phil was flattered that Dan almost never put on a face for him, but now he was wondering if Dan was freaking out about this whole fainting thing more than he was letting on. 

“So,” Dan said. “Mario Kart?”

“Mario Kart,” Phil nodded. 

Dan stayed for as long as they would let him, but he didn’t let any more signs of worry slip through. Phil had already known he’d wait until he was back home to bring it up, if he was going to bring it up at all. Dan was allowed to worry, he knew that, right? It was perfectly normal to worry a little. The fact that he was hiding it just made no sense.   
Once Dan had been quite forcibly ejected from the building, Phil stared at his little hospital cot and sighed. He was very much dreading getting into that bed. And he had absolutely no idea how he was expected to actually sleep in it. Plus there could be people coming in and out, at any point of the night, and the thought of that was making him feel extremely self-conscious.

So he just sat there, staring at it, willing it to turn into his bedroom at home, when a doctor came to see him and did what looked to Phil like a double-take. He checked the file, then went to consult with someone else, apparently, and then returned. 

And miracle of miracles, he told Phil that there was no reason to keep him overnight, and he could just return in the morning for his MRI. Phil practically raced out of there when they let him, and got back home as quickly as he could, blessing the late hour because there were fewer people about on the road at this time. Because it was pretty late, now. The doctor had come in at about ten, but getting released and then getting home had apparently taken close to two hours. 

Phil would have liked to charge up the stairs, but he knew his body wouldn’t feel like doing that even when he wasn’t suffering some sort of potential brain damage. So he just trudged up, the way he always did. 

Dan arrived at the top before he’d made it all the way up, and stared at him. “Phil?” he asked, almost in disbelief. 

“Hi!” Phil smiled. “So, guess what, they said I didn’t need to stay and could just come back tomorrow!”

To his surprise, Dan punched him in the arm. “You’re supposed to text me things like that!” He snapped. “Then I wouldn’t have had to feel—” he stopped, and then said quickly, “Then I wouldn’t have thought a burglar was entering my house!”

“Oh,” Phil said, rubbing his arm. “Yeah, sorry, I kinda forgot about—”

And then suddenly Dan arms were around him and he was roughly pulling him to his chest, and now Phil was even more confused. “Okay…?”

Dan didn’t say anything, and he only held his embrace for a couple of seconds before letting go. “Okay, go to bed, you spork, because you’re gonna have to get up early tomorrow, I imagine.”

His eyes were red again, Phil noticed, and though he desperately wanted to attribute them to being tired, he suddenly had a new guess. 

“Have you been crying?” he asked in a low voice.

Dan looked away, pursed his lips, and breathed in sharply through his nose. He seemed to consider the question for a second before turning back. “Yes, yes I have been.”  
“Because…because of me?” 

“No, Phil, because of the toast I made for myself an hour ago that I completely burnt.” 

“Well,” Phil said. “The comforting thing is that I know you really know how to make toast, because I had some at five this morning and it was amazing.” He reached out to gently poke Dan’s cheek. “But as for me…you know I’m fine, right? I’m here, and I didn’t die, and apparently I’m well enough to come home and sleep in my own bed.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t know that, did I?” Dan huffed, rubbing a final stray tear that had leaked from his eye. “That’s why you have to text me…”

“I’m sorry Dan, honestly, I’m sorry about that,” Phil said. “I should have known, I should have realized…because you spent the whole day freaking out, didn’t you? Ever since I shouted for you at five in the morning, right?” 

Dan hesitated, then bit his lip and nodded. 

“Oh, Dan,” Phil leaned in to hug him again. They didn’t hug very often; they didn’t need to, as they had plenty of physical contact anyway, so if one of them ever initiated one the other knew it was because they really needed it. “I’m sorry, Dan,” he murmured. “But it’s okay now, yeah? Everything’s okay now.”

“Not until they find out what’s wrong with you.” 

“Maybe nothing’s wrong with me. Maybe that’s why they couldn’t find anything.”

“Well, something must be wrong with you, otherwise you wouldn’t have—”

“Dan.” Phil cut him off. “Look, we can spin conspiracy theories all night long, except we can’t, because I’m super tired and I want to go to bed now, and you should too because staying up isn’t doing you any favors. I’m fine, okay? My headache is gone and I feel completely normal now, and all they’re doing is trying to figure out why it happened. Yeah?”   
Dan took in a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Phil nodded too. “Good. Good night, Dan.”

“Good night, Phil,” Dan whispered, and slowly turned towards the direction of his bedroom, with Phil watching him to make sure he actually went.


	3. III

Dan had heard it in his dream first. Phil calling his name over and over. It slowly transitioned into him coming out of his dream and realizing that Phil was actually calling for him in real life, but even though he remembered shouting an answer back, he was still more asleep than awake at the time.

He heard Phil say something other than his name in response, but all Dan wanted to do in that moment was ignore him and go back to sleep, so although he asked, “You what?” while keeping his eyes closed, he really had no intention of listening to Phil if he were to repeat himself. Nothing against Phil, of course. But really, what would be so important that Phil would need him right now? 

What indeed? That thought must have been the one to put together the pieces in Dan’s fuzzy brain, because after lying there for what couldn’t have been even two seconds longer, he suddenly realized that Phil had said he’d fallen over. And then Dan couldn’t leave his bed fast enough to go see what was wrong. 

He knew he probably shouldn’t have overreacted so much once Phil had eaten the toast and gone back to sleep with no more problems. And he knew he should have felt reassured once Phil was safely admitted into the hospital. He really shouldn’t have spent the whole day on top of his bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, his thoughts tearing him apart whenever he was awake and causing tears to fall. 

And he definitely knew that he didn’t have to suffer like this. When he went to visit Phil, he knew all he’d have to do was bury his head in his lap and start crying and Phil would know exactly what to say and how to comfort him. It wasn’t like they hadn’t been through that scenario a hundred times before. 

But, for whatever reason, in this instance Dan felt the incessant need to be the calm one in this situation. Phil hated going to the doctor, of course, as anyone would, and he was probably trying not to freak out for Dan’s sake. Dan wasn’t going to add to any stress of Phil’s by venting his worry. No, he would just calm himself down, and soon Phil would be diagnosed either as someone who had weeks left to live, or who was perfectly fine and had just fainted from stress or dehydration or something.

Dan hadn’t intended Phil to come home that night and see him in the midst of another crying fit. He hadn’t intended for Phil to catch him in his façade, but the following morning, before Phil went in for his MRI scan, Dan did admit to him the reason of his pretending. Phil just knocked shoulders with him and smiled. “I appreciate that, Dan,” he said. “But don’t ever feel like you have to do that again. I’m the only one you don’t need to pretend in front of, remember?” 

And Dan knew it, and felt comforted by it, just as he knew he would have been if he’d just freaked out in front of Phil in the first place. That Monday was a much better day for him, and when Phil came home with the announcement that he was fine, he had a healthier brain than most, and he was just going to take some antibiotics for a week to make sure, Dan thought they could put this whole episode behind them. 

But, they couldn’t quite yet. Because they then embarked upon what Dan secretly referred to as “That week in November.” 

Techincally, he supposed, it had started on Saturday. With Phil’s headache, and having to cancel the liveshow they thankfully hadn’t announced that they were going to do. And then came that dreadful Sunday, of course, where Phil spent the entire day in hospital and Dan might as well have. Monday was a very routine day once Phil came back with his results and medication.

Tuesday was also pretty routine, except that Phil spent most of the day asleep in bed. Dan only checked on him once, just to make sure there was nothing wrong with him, but Phil said there wasn’t; he was just recovering from the stress of the past few days. 

Dan accepted this, but when Phil did finally come out for dinner and took his antibiotics in front of his friend, it was kind of a stark reminder that he did have to take that, still. Dan was very familiar with medication. And what it could do to you. He was glad Phil had it and was taking it, but he was also bracing himself for any side effects.   
Phil seemed to be able to tell what he was thinking, because suddenly he laughed. “You know what the first side effect they warned me of was? Hyperactivity. That’s it, I mean they listed a couple other routine ones like slight nausea or tiredness, but that was the one they told me first. I wasn’t sure whether I should be offended or not!”

Dan smiled appreciatively, but didn’t think hyperactivity was anything he’d have to worry about. 

Wednesday proved him so, so wrong.

It took him a while for Dan to realize, because Phil was a bit hyperactive on occasion anyway, but he noticed that Phil was just talking to him. And talking. And talking. About nothing in particular, which again was just something that Dan was used to, but the fact that it just kept going, like a stream of consciousness, was what alerted Dan to the fact that this actually might be the tablets at work. 

And then Phil was constantly active that day. He got up semi-early, and then proceeded to completely clean the whole house. He claimed that it was because he’d had to lie still and cooped up for several days, which Dan did admit was a thing, but he didn’t think that would be enough for Phil to suddenly decide to clean the whole house. 

Thursday was the first “normal” day, as Phil was neither too active nor too lethargic, but actually seemed to have recovered and gotten over the hyperactivity feature of his medicine. Which was a good thing, because Make A Wish had arranged for them to hang out with a couple of fans that day, and Phil had been worried that he’d have to cancel all because he was on some stupid pills.

But that night when they got home, he still felt completely better, and asked if Dan wanted to do a liveshow, because neither one had really updated their followers since the hospital incident.

Dan had agreed, not thinking until later that maybe Phil was pushing it and he’d been Amazing Phil long enough that day.

Phil made it through, promising a video that weekend that fully talked about his experience, and then went to bed immediately after.

On Friday morning Dan got up and went to the kitchen to see Phil already there, staring listlessly into a cup of coffee. 

“Hey,” Dan said softly, like he had every morning that week. “How’re you feeling?”

“Tired.” Phil pushed his hand through his quiff and sighed. “Which is confusing. I thought coffee was supposed to fix that?”

“And I thought you were supposed to abstain from coffee until you were off the meds.”

“Oh…” Phil airily waved his hand in the air, brushing him off. “That’s just a recommendation. Not a strict rule. Anyway, ready to finally watch the new Riverdale episode?”  
Dan was, but it took them longer to get settled under their various assortment of blankets than they spent actually watching. Because not even two minutes in, Phil closed his eyes and shook his head. 

“Dan,” he said apologetically. “I can’t…we’ll have to…” 

Dan immediately reached for the pause button and looked at him anxiously. 

“I’m getting motion sickness,” Phil mumbled into his blanket.

“From just the title card?” It wasn’t an accusation. Dan was very gently questioning him, but Phil just nodded and buried his face deeper into the blanket. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Dan shrugged. “If you’re not enjoying it then was the point in us waiting this long to watch it? It’ll still be here next week.”

Phil sighed. “Stupid antibiotics.”

Dan wholeheartedly agreed.

The caffeine in Phil’s coffee never did work its magic on him that day, and Phil spent the rest of the day under that blanket, though he was able to do work or scroll through Tumblr on his laptop, so that was something. 

Saturday morning started off very much the same, except that Phil woke up very late in the day, and his coffee still was doing nothing to wake him up. He wandered into the lounge with his faithful blanket around his shoulders, and plopped down next to Dan who was playing Fortnite on the Switch. 

Dan glanced at him. “Are you going to get motion sickness from watching me play this?” 

Phil shook his head. “No, I don’t feel queasy today. I’ll leave if I do, though. But you know this is the last day I’m taking the tablets, so I should think we’re nearing the end of the symptoms.”

So Dan continued playing, but kept giving Phil side glances. Phil, who was practically being swallowed by the couch, seemed on the verge of falling asleep for a good hour, so Dan kept his gamer rage locked away and played probably the most silent experience of Fortnite on record. Eventually Phil gave in and fell asleep, and only then did Dan turn the game off and go about doing other activities in the house. This week was not treating Phil as harshly as it could have. But it was still not pleasant to sleep until 1 in the afternoon and wake up feeling so unrested that you went to sleep again a couple of hours later. Dan knew that from experience. 

He wasn’t sure if Phil had eaten that day at all, though, so after giving Phil a couple of hours he made dinner and then went to go wake him up. And he hated that part too, again knowing from experience that being asleep was the only respite from any pain you might be going through in reality. 

He sat down next to Phil and gently shoved his arm. “Phil,” he said. “Phil, hey, wake up.”

Phil’s eyes fluttered open, and he made a grunt of protest. “Dan…woah, where am I?”

“On the sofa, right where you passed out four hours ago.”

“Oh, right.”

“You hungry?” Dan asked. “And of course, you realize I’m only asking to be polite. You’re going to get over here and eat this food that I made you whether you’re hungry or not.”  
Phil giggled. “It’s a good thing I happen to be very fond of food, then.” 

Phil was alert enough during dinner, or at least alert enough to be able to carry a conversation full of the goofy banter that he usually had with Dan. But even though he was smiling and laughing, his eyes still looked very heavy, and Dan noticed. 

“You up for watching a movie?” he asked, once they’d finished eating. “Since apparently you’re over your motion sickness stage.”

Phil nodded eagerly, and then a little less eagerly as he thought of something. “Yes, but only if it’s one we’ve already seen.”

Dan agreed without asking why. He already knew. 

So Titanic it was, which to anyone who hadn’t seen it a million times already might have thought it a strange choice. But they’d picked this movie apart so much that it was now more a giant inside joke to them than a tragic love story, and it was kind of a nice distraction to just turn it on with the volume fairly low down, and only pay attention to it when they weren’t busy thinking about other things. 

They were burrowed deep underneath their blankets again, and Phil lasted a very long time, laughing softly at the inside jokes along with Dan, but around the halfway point he’d slid far enough down where he was leaning on Dan’s shoulder. Dan pulled himself out of his thoughts and glanced down to see him struggling to keep his eyes open. “Glasses,” Dan whispered. 

Phil just grunted in reply. “I need them to see the movie.”

“Mate, you’re not watching the movie anymore.” Dan reached over and pulled Phil’s glasses off. “You should really have more respect for your belongings.”

Phil only grunted again, and turned his head so that his face was buried in Dan’s shoulder. “Fainting was scary,” he said, in such a muffled voice that Dan wasn’t sure at first that that was what he’d said.

“Yeah,” Dan acknowledged. “Yeah, I bet it was.”

“I thought I was going to die alone there.” Phil managed a laugh that had no mirth behind it. “I mean I know that’s stupid, but at the time I was so disoriented that it made perfect sense for me to have that thought.”

“Totally.”

“And then I remembered you, and…” Phil’s voice, though it had become very airy and dreamy, also started to shake a little. “When I remembered that I wasn’t alone in the house…Dan—seriously, what would have happened to me if I was alone? If we hadn’t moved in together?”

Dan wound his arm under Phil’s blanket and around his shoulders, squeezing him closer. He knew that Phil, in some sense, was kind of not really aware what he was saying, and that’s where this was coming from. But there was no doubt in Dan’s mind that Phil would remember what he said.

“Well, we did,” Dan said, in a voice light as a feather. “And I was just as glad that I was there.”

Phil didn’t say anything else for several minutes, and honestly Dan wasn’t expecting him too, until a suddenly more alert Phil said, “Oh no.”

“What?” Dan suddenly became more alert too. “What happened?”

“Nothing, I just…” Phil turned his face again so that he was looking up at Dan’s. “I’m starting to get a headache?”

Dan’s immediate reaction was to pull Phil the rest of the way down so that his head was resting on his lap. “Sleep it off, Lester. Right now. You’ve been to the doctor’s way too often this week.”

Phil gave a small laugh, and then let himself gradually go limp where he was. Dan absent-mindedly began tracing light patterns over Phil’s face, and then stopped when he realized what he was doing. “Sorry. That’s probably not helping.”

“No...it is...actually.” Phil was already drifting off. “Keep going.” 

Dan complied, and then sighed a couple of moments later. “We so can’t do Gamingmas,” he said. “You realize that, right?” 

He said it not knowing if Phil was even awake to hear, but Phil gave an immediate response. “Yeah,” he said, regret climbing into his sleepy voice. “Yeah, I know.” 

“We need a break,” Dan continued, yawning as if the thought of everything he’d done that year, and still had to do, was crashing down on him. “Both of us. We need to make some changes.”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t even a whisper anymore. It was even lighter than a whisper.

Dan’s head slumped back into the sofa, but he cast his eyes down to look at Phil, who had his eyes squeezed shut and one hand desperately pressing into his forehead, as if warding the pain off.

Dan gingerly moved Phil’s hand off his forehead, and Phil offered no resistance as his breathing slowed. Dan knew he was succumbing to sleep, too, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about that. And he definitely wasn’t about to let Phil move if there was a chance his headache would return. So he didn’t fight it when his eyes began falling shut, and when his hand stopped tracing patterns on his friend’s face, he made no effort to restart. 

“But we did good this year.” It was like the voice didn’t come from Phil, with how faraway it sounded. Dan was barely even conscious enough to smile in the darkness. 

“Yes, Phil,” he said, before he completely slipped all the way under. “Yeah, we really did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that's the end! I was gonna put this kind of epilogue thing saying "So Phil was fine after that and he was able to do a liveshow and film his video and he didn't suffer any relapses after that." But I mean, we already know that. What I really only wanted to do with this story was to show Phil's experience and Dan's reaction.


End file.
